


holden caulfield; an epilogue

by MeddleLyn



Category: The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Swearing, inspired by my classmates bitching about the end of the book, just once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:48:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23638582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeddleLyn/pseuds/MeddleLyn
Summary: Or, Holden Caulfield doesn't owe you anything.
Kudos: 38





	holden caulfield; an epilogue

My classmates read the last chapter of _The Catcher in the Rye_ and called it dissatisfying. Called it boring. Anticlimactic. _Unsatisfactory_. As if they didn’t know from the start that the Holden that tells this story is not the same Holden who explored New York in winter and asked after the caretaker of the ducks on the lagoon.

When I first got the book, I accidentally opened to the last page. It wasn’t a hard accomplishment, the front and back covers being identical. I read that whole last chapter. And then I read it again. And then I went and read the book from the start but I kept going back to that chapter. Maybe it was because I had known it was coming from the start, or maybe I just didn’t care about how this ended as much, but I enjoyed the ending Holden gave us.

You see, everyone else wanted to know what happened next. What happened after he went back home, where he next went to school, if he improved his grades. What was his tale?

That is not the story Holden came to tell. That is not the story we were meant to hear.

But fine. You want a story? I’ll give you a story.

Let me tell you a story of a Holden Caulfield that goes home to his parents and breaks down and tells them all of New York. A story in which D.B. is home and is Holden’s big brother and holds him as he cries about Allie and his baseball glove. A story in which Holden does not go back to school just yet. Instead he goes to the institution upstate, complaining the whole way there until he is sitting in front of a therapist and telling the story he needed to.

Or, let me tell you a story of a Holden Caulfield that goes home and is sent to another prep school full of phonies and yet he doesn’t flunk out this time. He doesn’t do well by anyone’s standards, but he scrapes by with C’s and an A in English. A story in which Holden picks himself up and tells someone his story, eventually. A story in which Holden is eighteen and nineteen and twenty and in which Holden is no longer a child. 

Or I could tell you the story of a Holden Caulfield who becomes a teacher. A story of a boy that grew up and realized that he had a future and decided he needed to do something worthwhile with it. A story of a Holden Caulfield who is rough around the edges but is kind and good at teaching the ins and outs of the English language. A Holden Caulfield who refuses to fail someone based on their public speaking skills because sometimes kids get scared, or don’t care. It doesn’t mean they’re dumb.

Or, let me tell you about Holden Caulfield. A brash, loud, obnoxious boy. Who was dealt a bad hand and didn't have enough of himself left to make the most of it. Holden Caulfield, a very depressed, very broken boy. Holden Caulfield, literature extraordinaire, duck enthusiast, grieving brother, abuse survivor.

There are a million stories I could tell you of Holden Caulfield, of a boy who grows up and learns and is someone new. But that’s not the story we were meant to hear. It’s not the story we needed to hear.

Maybe Holden Caulfield had more to tell us. Maybe he did nothing interesting ever again. Maybe he stopped existing the moment we closed our books and stared at the horse on the cover, internally berating this character for not giving us the ending we wanted. But whatever other story he had to spare, whatever other "satisfactory" endings bounced around in his head or his life, Holden Caulfield doesn’t owe us _shit_. He gave us a story. He gave us seventy thousand words that once belonged to him and told us to figure it out. 

Holden Caulfield gave us a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Holden Caulfield gave us enough.


End file.
